Nintendo 3DS passes 1 million units sold in Japan, finally

After 13 weeks on the market, the Nintendo 3DS has passed the 1 million sales mark in Japan. This isn't a very good start: the DS hit that mark in four weeks, while the DS Lite and DSi took eight weeks, according to Adriasang.

On April 26, 2011, during its financial results briefing, Nintendo admitted that sales of the 3DS have been below expectations. Satoru Iwata, president and CEO of Nintendo, said the following, according to an official translation: "Nintendo 3DS started very well but, on the other hand, did not perform as expected after the second week."

"The initial sales were healthy; however, the sales speed slowed down from the third week after its launch which is not what we had expected for the start-up transition," said Iwata. "Of course, it is obvious that the great earthquake largely affected the sales, but I should not blame this situation just on the impact of the earthquake. There are other challenges that have shown up; therefore, we have revised our scenario for diffusion and are making efforts to get the popularity of Nintendo 3DS back on track for the upcoming summer season."

The 3DS offers 3D gaming sans 3D glasses and also includes the ability to take 3D photographs thanks to dual cameras on the back of the device. You can adjust the 3D intensity or turn it off completely using the slider. Nintendo issued a warning that it is not healthy for kids under the age of 6 to view 3D images.

The device also has an accelerometer, a gyroscope, a little analog circle pad, a home button, and a charging cradle. There's even an activity logger that acts like a pedometer, counting your steps and awarding coins that can be exchanged for bonus content, and a Street Pass function that lets you share certain information (think Miis) with passers-by who also have the feature activated.